Beatles News
“Let It Be” is one of the most famous songs the Beatles ever released. It’s easy to see why. The song’s combination of soul, gospel, and pop music helps it to connect with many different types of music fans.
Surprisingly, the Beatles were not the first artists to release their version of the song. Aretha Franklin’s version was released shortly before the Fab Four’s. Franklin is largely responsible for her version of the track languishing in obscurity.
“Let it Be” was written for the Beatles’ album of the same name. Like many Beatles songs, it was inspired by the work of another artist. In this case, Franklin inspired Paul McCartney to write “Let It Be.” The track was written in 1969, near the end of the sessions for its parent album.
Franklin wasn’t just the inspiration behind the song. Paul sent a copy of it to Jerry Wexler, a producer for Atlantic Records. He wanted Franklin to record a version of the song. Wexler said it’s highly possible Paul wrote the song specifically for Franklin.
Source: cheatsheet.com
“Here Comes the Sun” is one of the most famous of all Beatles songs. It’s one of the Fab Four’s simple anthems of hope, like “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be,” and “All You Need Is Love.” It’s delicate, beautiful, and universal. It’s been covered by everyone from Gothic rock band Ghost to soul legend Nina Simone.
“Here Comes the Sun” almost became the Beatles song that conquered outer space. Sadly, it was not to be. NASA was more interested in Chuck Berry.
Noted skeptic Carl Sagan oversaw the construction of two NASA space probes: Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. Each of these probes included a disc of sounds representing Earth called the Voyager Golden Record. The record included sounds of storms, sounds of birds, and classical music compositions. If an extraterrestrial life form found the probes, they could use these discs to get a sense of life on the blue planet.
Source: cheatsheet.com
Disney has acquired the worldwide distribution rights to Peter Jackson’s documentary “The Beatles: Get Back” and will release the film in theaters in the U.S. and Canada on Sept. 4, 2020, Bob Iger announced Wednesday during the Disney shareholders meeting.
The film was previously announced and features never-before-seen footage from The Beatles’ recording sessions during their album “Let It Be,” including the band’s final live concert as a group, their iconic rooftop performance on London’s Savile Row.
Additional details for the film’s global release will follow.
“No band has had the kind of impact on the world that The Beatles have had, and ‘The Beatles: Get Back’ is a front-row seat to the inner workings of these genius creators at a seminal moment in music history, with spectacularly restored footage that looks like it was shot yesterday,” Iger said of the announcement. “I’m a huge fan myself, so I could not be happier that Disney is able to share Peter Jackson’s stunning documentary with global audiences in September.”
Source: Brian Welk/thewrap.com
The Beatles aren’t just revered because they were great. They are also revered because of the influence they had and continue to have on numerous other artists. One of the earlier bands to take inspiration from them is the Monkees. The Monkees were a pop-rock band created to capitalize on the success of the Beatles’ films A Hard Day’s Night and Help! The Monkees starred in a self-titled television series inspired by the aforementioned films and then went on to release their own records.
Initially, the Monkees were actors who did not have much involvement in the creation of their records aside from providing vocals. Because of this, the Monkees are sometimes dismissed. However, some have claimed the Monkees managed to outsell the Beatles in 1967. Is this true? And what did the Beatles have to say about the Monkees?
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison may well have been one of the integral corners of the most triumphant band to ever grace the earth in The Beatles but he was still riddled with insecurity. The guitarist and songwriter had begun to find his feet in 1969 but was still fairly conflicted about his own guitar playing.
It may have been the Quiet Beatle living up to his name and keeping the spotlight away from him or perhaps that the class of guitarist he rose up with, the likes of Clapton and Hendrix, were just too far out of his league for him to even consider himself in the same bracket. Either way, he was never one to boast about his work on the fretboard.
When you consider this against the fact that alongside John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr he was the lead guitar in some of the most widely loved songs ever written it can be a hard fact to get your head around. Not to mention his impossibly brilliant solo work.
Source: Jack Whatley/faroutmagazine.co.uk
Speaking in a recent interview with Ovidiu Cernăuțeanu, one of the most iconic music stars of all time, The Beatles’ Paul McCartney, has made a special statement about his musical direction and revealed his favorite musical chord.
In the interview, Ovi asked a question to learn out if he had a favorite chord and Paul answered:
“A favourite chord… That’s a hard question! But I would say E is a pretty big favourite. It’s one of the early chords you learn. And in the early days, we used to play the Buddy Holly songs that we listened to a lot.
He used E and A a lot, so we used E and A lot too. It’s a very pure basic chord and on the guitar it rings out beautifully because the bottom string is open. So it has a resonance that some other chords don’t have.
Source: Ugur Ustaer/metalheadzone.com
“Got My Mind Set on You” was one of the biggest hits of George Harrison’s post-Beatles career. What many fans don’t know is it’s a cover of a song from the 1960s. The Beatles could have released their own rendition of the track during their prime.
However, it was not to be. Instead, George released his version of the song in the 1980s to great success. Here’s why the Beatles passed on “Got My Mind Set on You.”
According to The Independent, George became the first Beatle to visit the United States in 1963. He traveled to the country to see his sister, Louise, in Benton, Illinois. Salon reports that, while he was there, he picked up several records.
Among the records were some of Bobby Bland’s music, Booker T and the MGs’ first album, Green Onions, and James Ray’s 1962 debut album. George felt the latter was terrible. However, he enjoyed one song from it: “I’ve Got My Mind Set on You.”
Source: cheatsheet.com
George Harrison and Eric Clapton need no introduction. One was the under-rated Beatle, the other is arguably the best Blues artist and one of the best guitarists of all time. They had an amazing friendship, but that’s not all they shared. They also shared love, for the same woman! That woman is Pattie Boyd. This love triangle gave the world some of the greatest songs of all time. Let’s take a look at them.
The songs Clapton wrote for Pattie:
1. “Layla”
Layla is Clapton’s biggest ever hit. It was written for Pattie herself when she was married to George Harrison. But that’s not all…
Source: Ali Arslan Ahmed/dankanator.com
As Olivia Harrison remembers, her future husband, George, drove himself to work on the first day on his new job. It was October 1974, and George Harrison had flown to Los Angeles to visit the offices of the record label he’d just launched. The only problem was that no one had organized a welcoming party for him, but Olivia — then Olivia Arias, newly hired to work on the project — dashed out to the parking lot to greet him. “I thought somebody should,” she says. “He drove onto the lot by himself in this little car, and I thought, ‘Jeez, this is a big day in his life,’ and I went outside and said, ‘Welcome!’ He said, ‘What’s going on?’ He was very excited, but it was just me.”
In many ways, the story befits Harrison: Among his fellow Beatles, he was always the most low-key and publicity averse — the so-called quiet Beatle who also had a sly sense of humor. But his life after the band’s breakup was far from quiet; the early-to-mid-Seventies were some of the most creative and bustling years of his career. He went solo as soon as the group disbanded in 1970, organized the all-star Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden, and had hit singles of his own. Then, in 1974, he decided to start his own label, Dark Horse Records.
Source: David Browne/rollingstone.com
George Harrison was a true legend, both as a Beatle and as a solo artist. When he first began his solo career, some feared he wouldn’t find the success his bandmates had. However, he became a huge star in his own right.
Has his music lasted? Yes. In fact, fans still cared about his song “My Sweet Lord” over thirty years after its original release. Here’s how the tune hit number-one so long after it first hit the airwaves.
John Lennon and George Harrison on set of a show at Alpha Television Studios, Aston, Birmingham | David Farrell/Redferns
The Guardian reports George sadly passed away of cancer on Nov. 29, 2001. This created a huge demand for his record label, EMI, to rerelease is most iconic hit, “My Sweet Lord,” as a single. According to the Official Charts Company, “My Sweet Lord” originally hit #1 in the United Kingdom in 1971. Despite fan demand for a rerelease of the single, it didn’t happen right away.
Source: cheatsheet.com
